Bio-bibliografia + videoclip (inglese)

Paesi Bassi/Germania

Heino Falcke

Premio Balzan 2023 per immagini ad alta risoluzione: dagli oggetti planetari a quelli cosmici

Per le sue ricerche fondamentali che hanno reso possibile catturare con grande precisione l’immagine dei dintorni di un buco nero, grazie alla sua leadership nello sviluppo dell’Event Horizon Telescope, costruito proprio per questo scopo, che fornisce a oggi le immagini più accurate di questi corpi celesti non solo nella nostra galassia, la Via Lattea, ma anche in quelle lontane, come la M87. Ciò ha permesso di confermare la teoria generale della relatività di Einstein in situazioni in cui la gravità è così forte da produrre una significativa curvatura dello spazio-tempo (e di dimostrare l’esistenza dei buchi neri supermassicci).

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Heino Falcke, born on 26 September 1966 in Cologne, Germany, is a German citizen.

Since 2007 he has been full Professor of Astroparticle Physics and Radio Astronomy at Radboud University Nijmegen and a Guest Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn since 2011.

In 1993 Falcke obtained his Diploma in Physics, in 1994 his Ph.D., and in 2000 his Habilitation at the University of Bonn.

He is a Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the Academia Europaea. He is also a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG), the Astronomische Gesellschaft (AG), and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW).

In 2020 his best-selling book Licht im Dunkeln. Schwarze Löcher, das Universum und wir (English edition: Light in the Darkness: Black Holes, the Universe, and Us) was published in Germany by Klett-Clotta and has since been translated into ten languages.

Among his key papers:

H. Falcke and P. L. Biermann (1995), Astronomy and Astrophysics, 293, 665-682: “The jet-disk symbiosis. 1. Radio to X-ray emission models for quasars”.

H. Falcke, F. Melia, and E. Agol (2000), The Astrophysical Journal, 528, L13-L16: “Viewing the Shadow of the Black Hole at the Galactic Center”.

S. Markoff, H. Falcke, and R. Fender (2001), Astronomy and Astrophysics, 372, L25-L28: “A jet model for the broadband spectrum of XTE J1118+480. Synchrotron emission from radio to X-rays in the Low/Hard spectral state”.

H. Falcke, E. Körding, and S. Markoff (2004), Astronomy and Astrophysics, 414, 895-903: “A scheme to unify low-power accreting black holes. Jet-dominated accretion flows and the radio/X-ray correlation”.

H. Falcke and 75 colleagues (2005), Nature, 435, 313-316: “Detection and imaging of atmospheric radio flashes from cosmic ray air showers”.

R. P. Eatough, H. Falcke, and 26 colleagues (2013), Nature, 501, 391-394: “A strong magnetic field around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Galaxy”.

M. P. van Haarlem and 200 colleagues (2013), Astronomy and Astrophysics, 556, A2: “LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray”.

Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration and 348 colleagues (2019), The Astrophysical Journal, 875, L1: “First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results.

I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole” (member of writing team & internal corresponding author).

Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration and 388 colleagues (2022), The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 930, L12: “First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole in the Center of the Milky Way”.

M. F. Wondrak, W. D. van Suijlekom, and H. Falcke (2023), Physical Review Letters, 130, 221502: “Gravitational Pair Production and Black Hole Evaporation”.